HE REMEMBERS THE FIRST TIME HE FELT FEAR. remembers it vividly, the memories washing over like waves over an empty beach ( it's getting harder to ignore, the feeling of helplessness, the frightened child hiding deep within his ribcage ) it must be the effect of that cursed mask stuck in his contorted faΓ§ade of happiness, toying with his psyche as it pleases. pulling on the already unraveled threads of his already broken mind, bringing back those pushed down recollections of past times until he is fourteen again and unable to do anything. he can't fucking do anything, loyal beast wraps around him resembling unusual fabric yet it won't move, it won't OBEY HIM. the once-rabid now so easily tamed dog is begining to wonder if it is all a dellusion, if he was never powerful, if he never had control / had made it all up to cope with the reality. if not, then maybe he is dreaming now, perhaps he will be awaken from a deep slumber by a familiar gentle face ( wouldn't be the first time, nor the last )
" HIDE AND SEEK ? " fairly surprised by his own words, he takes a tentative step back, for the interest and curiousity had been geniune in his tone, in the scratchy voice that had come out ; almost as if he hadn't used it in days, even if he had been speaking just a second ago. the roughness in his throat triggers a cough that starts bubbling from his chest up to his mouth / where he desperately tries to hold onto it like uselessly threading water, blood pooling in his mouth behind the mask. the taste of iron brings a familiarity he has no right to escape, a cold tsunami that hits his back with the force of the lives taken, so sudden and real it bends him over. there is not enough strength in him, him, who has not eaten nor slept for three days straight, to contain the clots of gore clawing out of his lungs using as fangs the words that akutagawa has swallowed over and over again. weak knees hit the cold floor underneath his figure, as his left hand instinctively tries to contain the specks of crimson to leave his mouth, right hand supporting the weight of the sickly bag of bones that his body has become.